Doctoring
by Lora Perry
Summary: Dr. Rudolph Stuart figured out all by himself that Owen was Torchwood. They had been friends for years, and he knew him too well. That and the fact that Torchwood had once had a "medical emergency" at his hospital and he'd seen Owen running around.


Rudolph Stuart was not a dumb man. In fact he was a very smart man. He had graduated near the top of his class from medical school and had been accepted into multiple programs where his doctoring abilities had grown in both talent and respect. So no, Rudolph Stuart was not a dumb man. He did so, sometimes, make dumb choices. There was the time he had bleached his hair after finishing grade school or the time he had gotten drunkly drunk and had warned around London singing very off-key versions of the at the time very popular Spice Girls. And of course there was that time when he, young and naïve, had befriended Owen Harper, a fellow student of medicine.

Now befriending Owen Harper may not have seemed like a bad idea, or a stupid decision. He was after all another very intelligent man, fully engrossed in whatever he did. And when Rudolph had first met Owen, they had both been young, impressionable, and very eager to get into fist fights in pubs once lessons had been finished for the week. Because even very smart young men enjoy the rush of adrenaline that flows through the veins with the first crunch of phalange against mandible. And these were two young men that thoroughly enjoyed that rush of adrenaline mixed with whatever alcoholic drink was their preference that night.

Their friendship had been more than that of wingman and drink companion in pubs; yet theirs was less than the glorified friendships often writ about. Theirs was one of friendship and necessity, of strength and likeness, and the fact that both carried their alcohol and a wicked right hook. Owen was geared towards neurosurgery, a field where his excellence in detail and mechanics all but made up for his horrible bedside manner and off-putting at times personality. Rudolph had found a calling in emergency trauma surgery, being on the front line, the first person to be able to make or break a life. His bedside manner only improved with age, and his tales of the patients he encountered in various A&Es he worked in grew with time.

Owen's internship and residency had kept him in London, working at a bustling metropolitan hospital, learning how to cut and suture, to take and replace, to become God made flesh. Rudolph on the other hand, was shipped to Cardiff of all places, where a hospital was introducing an exciting new program for trauma surgeons. And thus life continued on. Internships were had, residencies were begun. Girls were met and girls were lost. Patients were saved and patients were lost.

One day, in between saving lives and contemplating the awful weather of Cardiff, Rudolph Stuart checked his mail. He had bills to pay, a coupon to get him to change his mobile service, and a wedding invitation to read. On-off white heavy stock, engraved with golden letters, was the request of his presence as Owen Michael Harper married Katie Anne Russell and to watch as they begin their life together. Rudolph laughed as he walked back to his flat, thoughts of his old friend from days gone by in his head. He planned to take time off to see the ceremony, and was excited to see Owen after more than three years apart.

A month and a half later, the news was less joyous. Katie Russell was dead, an inoperable brain tumor had seen to that. Owen Harper was taking some well understood time off, to grieve for both his lost fiancé, as well as the death of his mentor. Rumor was that Harper had gone off the deep end for a while, spouting of about secret government conspiracies and aliens; most however just chalk it up to stress and dreadful, painful, grief.

Less and less is heard about Harper as the months pass. And Rudolph tried hard to listen. It's not as if the gossipers didn't want to talk about Owen Harper. He was the golden child of surgery before the deaths had come; there were simply no new things to be spread. Whispers etch up in corridors that he'd joined MI6 but those are laughed at with gusto. For a while, Owen Harper becomes just another burn out; a respected one, one who is mourned, for the world always needs more doctors, but a burn out all the same.

**

* * *

Rudolph receives the phone call in mid October The weather of Cardiff has him in a foul mood, and it already looks as if it will be another cold year of something that could become snow, but it's Cardiff so it'll just be icy and black with mud. His flat is cold as well, the heater having given out the morning before and the repairman having time open the week after next to come out and fix it. Rudolph is huddled under a warm blue blanket with a nice cup of tea, in his bedroom when his mobile rings. Rudolph groans. He's left his mobile in the other room, thrown it on the kitchen counter if he recalls correctly, and it would require him untangling himself from the comfortable nest of blankets he's encased himself in to go and get it. He can't remember if he's on call or not today either and that just makes him groan again. This phone conversation, Rudolph already knows, will most likely end with him having to leave his flat to go back to hospital.

Sighing, because he is a good doctor and a better colleague, he escapes from his cocoon and walks into the kitchen to answer. His mobile is on the top of his kitchen counter, next to the empty fruit bowl (the one he swears he will fill with healthy things once all the leftover Chinese has been eaten…and the pizza coupon has been used). He absently minded checks the caller id flashing up at him, already submitting to the knowledge that it'll read one of the various nurses' names who are in charge of calling in wayward doctors. His eyes do a double check when instead of Candice, Susan or even Peter, it is instead Owen Harper's name flashing up at him.

He answers.

"Hello?"

"Rudolph Stuart! How are you mate?" It is indeed Owen. His voice is distinct, no crackly reception there to interfere.

"I'm good, I guess. Weather in Cardiff is an annoyance though." Because that is what three years and two deaths has reduced their friendship to- conversations about the weather.

"And don't I know it. I had to go looking for flats today in this god awful cold. Honestly, it's ridiculous."

Rudolph blinks for a second, "Sorry, Owen, what did you just say? Are you in Cardiff right now?"

"Yeah, I am, actually. Going to be working here from now on. Though why I agreed to it is beyond me now. Does it honestly snow here in October?"

"No not usually." Rudolph blurts out before he has time to think. Owen? Here? In Cardiff of all places?

"Well than that's at least one good thing about this city. Say, do you know any good pubs around? I figured you and me could go out and get a drink sometime this week and impress ourselves with the locals? Or have you gone local on me?"

"A drink? Yeah yeah sure. I'll have to check my schedule though. Honestly I don't know what day it is even."

"It's Thursday, Stuart. honestly."

"Ahh. Thanks Owen. But yeah, drinks should be good. Possibly tomorrow, but I'll give you a ring when I know for sure."

"Sounds good mate. Listen, I'll let you go. It's good to know there's at least one Londoner here in Cardiff."

Rudolph laughs and hangs up. He sits down on one of the stools in the kitchen and stares blankely at the mutely colored blue hallway that leads back to his bedroom. He doesn't move.

"Owen Harper. In Cardiff. The world just isn't ready for this."

* * *

This is crack!. I realize that this is crack!. I also realize how much fun I'm going to have with it.

Please note, however, that I am American. I do not know all that British slang there is to know. I've tried to use the most obvious ones, i.e. flat instead of apartment, and A&E instead of ER. If there are any others that are blantanly obvious, and simply an insult to British people everywhere, just let me know. K. Thanks.

This will be multi-chapter. This will be an outsiders POV of the series. This will be at times silly. and this will be at times not so silly.

You're welcome to your opinions. You can share them with me now. =)


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